14 DAY TRIAL // With the advent of Internet Explorer 9 Release Candidate, Microsoft also made public the latest set of results in the WebKit SunSpider JavaScript Benchmark. Earlier this week, before IE9 RC downloads were live, I had a chat with Rob Mauceri, Group Program Manager of IE, and Ryan Gavin, Senior Director of IE, and they confirmed to me that once again, Internet Explorer 9 is the fastest browser according to the SunSpider Benchmark.
IE9 RC wrapped up the collection of JS tests in just 209 ms, with Chrome 9 the runner up (238 ms) and Opera 11 coming in third with 240 ms.
The 4th position is occupied by Chrome 10.0 Dev (248 ms), followed by Firefox 4.0 Beta 11 (254 ms), Safari 5.0.3 (310 ms), Firefox 3.6.13 (753 ms) and IE8 (3746 ms).
It’s incredible how much IE9 has evolved, performance-wise, compared to Internet Explorer 8.
“Significant performance improvements in browser speed which, according to the WebKit SunSpider test, is now 35% faster than the IE9 Beta,” revealed Ryan Gavin, Senior Director, Internet Explorer Business and Marketing.
“Coupled with IE9’s innovative approach to graphics processing through hardware acceleration in Windows, IE9 is truly an all-around fast browser opening up opportunities for developers to create rich new experiences.”
The tests were performed with WebKit SunSpider version 0.9.1 running on a Windows 7 Dell Optiplex ( 3.0 GHz Core 2 Duo Intel CPU, 4GB RAM, Intel Integrated Video), Microsoft informed.
However, the Redmond company emphasizes that strong investments were made in terms of performance across the table, and that IE9 RC’s boost in speed is not limited to JS.
“Internet Explorer 9 RC continues to improve performance for real world customer scenarios,” the software giant said.
“Performance is a multidimensional challenge that spans the 11 browser subsystems. Between the Internet Explorer 9 Beta and Internet Explorer 9 RC releases, over 2,000 changes have been made to improve browser performance for real customer scenarios.
“Internet Explorer 9 RC starts faster, loads webpages faster, and allows you to interact with web pages faster than ever before.”
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Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) Release Candidate (RC) Build 9.0.8080.16413 is available for download here.
